


You Don't Know It's What You'll Do (It's Just You)

by orange_8_hands



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, Supernatural
Genre: 5 Things, Aftermath, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Gen, POV Second Person, Pre-Canon, Self-Sacrifice, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-09
Updated: 2012-04-09
Packaged: 2017-11-03 07:54:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/379090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orange_8_hands/pseuds/orange_8_hands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's only a spark because Sammy needs to be safe. (5 Moments of Dean's Hunger Games.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Don't Know It's What You'll Do (It's Just You)

**Author's Note:**

> Title/song comes from "Hey Jude" by the Beatles. Spoilers to the end of Mockingjay; in very general terms, SPN 5.01/5.13.

i.  
  
You are eleven. The mines explode, fire stretching underground to claim your mother. You imagine her pinned, the force of it knocking her into a wall, the fire licking her skin off. You picture her face, eyes open in silent horror, flames burning her screams out of her. Sometimes you imagine stone slicing into her stomach, so that before she burns she bleeds.  
  
 _Don't be afraid_ , she once sung. _Don't let me down_.  
  
Your father disappears inside his head and you are handed a medal, like that can make it up, like that can make it better. You push the rest of your meal into Sammy's hands. Your stomach yaws open, chokes your throat, but your father just looks at the fire and goes somewhere far, far away. You see the faces of the Hub turn away from you, they have their own starving mouths to feed, and you can't even hate them for it.   
  
It is raining, and you stumble into the tree and sink down to the ground, let the puddles soak through the thin shirt you wear. You have no way to get food, no way to feed your brother, no way to slap your father awake and tell him to pay attention, to care, you are only eleven years older and being raised Seam didn't make you prepared for this.  
  
A boy your age stumbles out of the door across from you, bread in his hands. His mother stands near, just inside the doorway, and you see him look at the bread, at the pig pen he is supposed to throw them at, and then at you. His eyes are blue and wide, and only your quick reflexes, not yet dulled enough by hunger, mean you catch the bread. You want to tell him you don't want his help, you don't want his pity, but your stomach is churning and Sammy's is worse, and you leave with the bread like a thief, just slow enough to hear his mother's smack.  
  
You find your mother's bow and your mother's arrows and you aim true, shaky limbs with eleven year old strength. You come across a girl named Jo, two years older and fire in her eyes, the same useless medal, useless trinket hanging in her home. You teach her your mother's bows and she teaches you her father's traps and slowly, together, you feed each other's families.  
  
 _Take a sad song, and make it better_ , but you don't sing anymore.  
  
ii.  
  
You never had to be told to take care of Sammy. It was in the trust of a newborn baby being placed in four year old arms. It was in the booming laughter whenever you played hide-behind-your-eyes with him. It was in the warm weight of his body in the bed next to you, in the way your mother taught you songs to sing to him, in the way your father wore his pride when he figured out the recipe to keep swelling down. He was your little brother and you loved him with everything in you.   
  
"I volunteer as tribute," you say before you even realize the words are there. You repeat them, scream it, "I volunteer as tribute!"  
  
The Peacekeepers flank you, and you walk up the steps to the stage as Becky hems and haws, no one volunteers and she isn't sure what to do, and the mayor just says, "What does it matter?" You are the boy who brings him strawberries, and might have been friends with his son Victor. Maybe you were mentioned, once or twice in his household. Maybe the medal he pressed into your hand, wincing slightly, is remembered. "What does it matter?" he repeats. "Let him come forward."  
  
"No!" Sammy screams. "No, you can't go!"  
  
Sammy's hands wrap around your waist, try to keep you still, keep you with him. He smiled more, before the mine exploded, but he was always a quiet child. Quiet and small, so tiny, and Jo manages to snatch him up and hold him. Her voice catches, just slightly, when she says, "Up you go, Dean." She drags Sammy away, maybe to your father, and out of the corner of your eye you see Ellen clutch them both to her.  
  
"Well bravo," Becky says. "Now that's the spirit of the Games. And what's your name?"  
  
You swallow hard. "Dean Winchester."  
  
"Hmm," she says. "I bet that was your brother. Didn't want him stealing all the glory, is that it? Well, come on everybody! Let's give a big round of applause to our newest tribute."  
  
Maybe it's because they know you, from trading, maybe because they knew your mother, or because of Sam, who everybody always likes, who everybody loves. Maybe even your father, who used to heal the hurting and broken among them. Maybe because you just made a deal that has never been made before, not in this District, not when it means certain death.  
  
They are silent, the loudest form of dissent they can offer. Not one person claps. And then - because you just saved Sammy, and who can't help but love Sammy - first one person, and then another, and then it seems like every person, even the people who bet on which kid will die first, die fastest, die bloodiest, even the people who toast the screens when the tributes from District 12 die, all of them raise their three middle fingers to their lips and then the air. It is an old, old gesture, a gesture rarely seen, not even often at funerals. It means thanks, it means admiration, it means good-bye to someone you love.  
  
You swallow again, blink your eyes, and behind you Bobby falls off the stage and captures the cameras attention, and you brush the one tear off your cheek and blank your face by the time the cameras turn back to you. You focus on a spot in the middle distance as they get Bobby situated again, and you do not think about Jo's idea (we could run), you do not think about where you are going, you do not think about anything because it is too heavy a load for you to bear and not break under.   
  
"Well what an exciting day," Becky says, perky and loud. "And let us see who the second tribute is!"  
  
She grabs the ball and is reading the name before you even have time to wish Jo to safety, and suddenly, amazingly, it is so much worse, it is all just that much worse.  
  
"Castiel Novak," she squeals.  
  
The boy with the bread.  
  
iii.  
  
You find Bobby with a bottle of white liquor and shaking hands. He pours you a cup and you don't bother saying no, don't bother pretending. You have always understood each other, just too well. Understood every message he sent with every silver parachute. Understood what it meant, when he whispered in your ears, _you made the Capitol look foolish_. Understood what it all meant.  
  
"He was already here, you know," Bobby finally says. He snorts, slumps lower in his seat. "Already trying to figure out how to save you."  
  
You take a long pull from the bottle. It's too hot going down your throat but you think you could like this, easily like the numb warmth spreading through you. If you had longer to get used to it you would, but this is a one time thing, you have to be as ready as possible when you leave, and this time there's no coming back. (Making it right, finally.)  
  
"He's definitely the best of our little trio," you say, and take another long pull. "Your turn to help him."  
  
"Dean-"  
  
"No, me and you, we're going to be making a deal. He lives. This time we get him out alive."  
  
Bobby stares at you for a long moment. "So, what, you wanna kiss on it?"  
  
You lean your forehead against the wood table and laugh. "I guess your word will have to be enough."  
  
iv.  
  
You are the spark that started the revolution. (Only, not really. It was Cas's plans and Jo's fire and Victor's pin that turned you into the symbol. You just used your instincts and survived, couldn't help it. The only thing you did was step in front of your brother, at the first Reaping, and even that was just another instinct, bred bone-deep into you. You are only the spark because someone lit you on fire.)  
  
"Just give me a chance," you beg.  
  
Rufus looks at you sadly, but nods. "Get through the training and if you pass the test...if you pass the test I'll make sure you make the lists."  
  
So you go to training. Ava is there, surprisingly, body still shaky as she recovers from the morphine. You insult each other until you make the one mile marker, make the two, make the three. Your muscles quiver and ache, but you share smiles with her, sharp, pointed smiles, neither of you willing to be left behind. You still don't like her and you still aren't friends, but maybe, you think you can be allies, and that's good enough.  
  
You come across Pamela tying small knots in her foot-long rope. Tie, tie, tie, complicated numbers you couldn't replicate, and then releases them, quick flick of her hand and they are gone again, just a smooth piece of rope hanging in her hand, last link to sanity. You didn't think she'd need it again, thought the wedding preparations did a better job of bringing her back into the now. She smiles more, smiles more honest than she probably has since she was fourteen and the newest tribute, lusted after until she won, lusted after ever after.   
  
"It's never going to be over, is it?" she asks, her eyes unseeing.  
  
You swallow and don't answer. Killing President Azazel will have to be enough.  
  
v.  
  
But it isn't.  
  
You never really plan. They seem to forget that, the way you always, always lived in the moment. Strategies are for days; the long term, the way you made it out alive (once, twice, and it should have been never), is luck, is Cas's love and Bobby's plans and the only thing you can claim, the only thing you can really claim is the quiet, stupid, reckless moments that you just happened to live through.   
  
(Mostly, they forget you gave your life for Sammy, would do it again and again and again. They forget survival wasn't your goal; Sammy's survival was. They forget you aren't stupid, not as stupid as they think.  They forget Sammy blew up.)  
  
It's actually the easiest shot you've ever taken. President Ruby clutches for just a moment, the quickest face of pure shock (there's no cannon boom but you know she's dead) and President Azazel laughs once, before finally choking on his own blood, and everyone rushes you and you wait for something, an arrow, a bullet, even just a fist, something, you wait for suicide.  
  
(They make you live.  
  
                    For the longest time, you think this is your punishment for being the Mockingjay.)

**Author's Note:**

> ETA: I didn't really think or realize that putting white characters from other fandoms into the roles of characters of color was a form of whitewashing until much after the fact of writing this fic, plus not to mention guys for women parts, and I apologize.


End file.
